20 September 2013

Quantum Consciousness: The Ultimate Gap-filler

When Daniel Dennett coined the
term ‘greedy reductionism’, in his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995),
he may not have fully realised just how byzantinely gluttonous some ‘high tech’
forms of such reductionism could become.

Dennett was taking aim at the
false type of reductionism; the kind that ‘gobbles up’ entire layers of
complexity warranting scientific investigation in its haste to get to some
imagined seed of perfect truth. I think he primarily had religion in mind,
because of its obvious zeal to dig for gods at the slightest opportunity, and
to brand everything unexplained as proofs of ‘intelligent design’. There is
another kind of greedy reductionism, however, that is more of a closet bulimic
than an out-and-out hog.

In my sights right now is the
so-called orchestrated
objective reduction (Orch-OR) hypothesis devised
by mathematical physicist, Roger Penrose, and anaesthesiologist Stuart
Hameroff. Here, the gods of consciousness are squeezed into such tiny gaps that
the gaps aren’t really gaps at all, but quantum states.

Orch-OR holds that human
consciousness depends on exotic quantum-mechanical phenomena such as Bose-Einstein
condensates. When, in his book The Emperor’s
New Mind (1989), Penrose posited the idea of consciousness as a quantum
phenomenon, he lacked an explanatory framework for it. Penrose utilised the
counter-intuitive mathematics of Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness
theoremin
claiming that thought must be non-computable, but he did not propose any
substantive alternative to classical-physics theories of the ways that neurons
and synapses work.

What is unusual about Orch-OR,
compared with the various other ‘quantum soul’ notions, is that it has an
ostensibly scientific basis; quantum superpositions, Bose-Einstein
condensates, macroscopic quantum effects, quantum entanglement,
and so on are all real phenomena. It seems, then, reasonable to look at an
apparently very strange and inexplicable outcome of a biological substrate –
consciousness – and explain it wholly in terms of quantum strangeness. So why
are other scientists so keen to attack this hypothesis?

There is another ‘why?’ that we
should first ask ourselves: why ignore all the other possible explanations that
have still to be fully explored, and go straight for the quantum one?
Investigation of nanoscale components of neurites in the brain, such as microtubules and neurofilaments, requires an electron microscope. The potential
information-bearing capacity of these ‘components’ is unimaginably huge. And it
is highly likely that they are capable of performing their role without the
influence of quantum effects. Granted, as holistic reductionists we
should not assume that, say, microtubules are bearers of discrete pieces of
information, such as memories. But we should be prepared to accept that they
contribute to the substrate of the brain, allowing – in highly-convolved
combination with all the other levels of material processes – a kind of
computation to happen in the system as a whole.

Now we’re getting down to it:
computability versus non-computability. If we are going to insist that
computation is ‘made’ of numbers, then we open ourselves up to attack by
non-reductionists (and by so-called greedy reductionists). But, the way I like
to think of it, computation isn’t made of numbers any more than money is made
of paper. Computation can be represented in numerical form, and money can
be represented in paper form; that doesn’t mean that those representations are
what those things are.

Physicists such as Max Tegmark have
rebutted Orch-OR, citing experiments indicating
that the quantum states claimed for it by Hameroff would not arise and/or would
not last long enough to play a role in consciousness. We should also bear in
mind that Hameroff believes in ghosts. In an interview
for the website of the Institute of Noetic Sciences,
he stated: ‘I think consciousness is actually fundamental and intrinsic
to the universe, that it’s built into the universe.’
This, of course, is animistic; Hameroff clearly believes in some type of
‘animating life force’ permeating the Universe. So his agenda is clear – he
wants to find a way to scientise his belief in what really amounts to a
‘quantum soul’.

Our universe is quantum.
It is probabilistic all the way up and all the way down. But if we allow
non-reductionists masquerading as hungry reductionists to gobble up all the
classical levels in between, we will have no classical matter left to interact
with. We will be giving up on our place in the Universe, kicking back,
shrugging our shoulders, munching on the junk food of bad science, and saying,
‘Wow, you know, it’s all like... energy, man.’ We will be making
ourselves inexplicable, when there is absolutely no need to do so.

We are well used to hearing this kind of line from the
religious. Now we also have to be constantly on our guard against
plausible-sounding quantum hucksters (see Deepak Chopra,
among others). We reductionists may cause you discomfort, by breaking you down
into smaller and smaller parts. But these greedy reductionists and
non-reductionists will swallow you whole as soon as look at you.